Destruction
by Abitridiculous
Summary: A series of endings. First fanfic, would love any reviews!
1. Chapter 1

After she destroys him, he drives home and sits on the edge of his bed and just cries like the fucking pathetic mess that he is.

He can't even maintain himself enough to cry respectably; he cries until he stops breathing and then he chokes on it, pushing out strangled high-pitched noises and then trying to suck them back in. He cries in a way that he's only ever seen in other people, and even as he does it he thinks about how overdramatic he is, how totally fucking _ridiculous_ he's being, and he hates himself for it. People only cry like this when someone's dead, he thinks angrily at himself, but then he's crying harder and thinks maybe he's dead, he's dying, _something_ in him is certainly dying at this moment. He puts his head in his hands and thinks about how he's completely out of control, he doesn't even know what he's doing anymore, doesn't know why he's doing anything, he's just puking out all of his emotions and everyone's getting bogged down in the mess of it. He's a madman and he's ruined everything.

He's interrupted by a knock at the door, and then Mark's voice – "Hey man, you okay?" So he straightens himself, wipes at his face like he has any intention of actually opening the door, and chokes out, "Yeah man, I'm just tired. I think I'm gonna go to bed." Mark stands outside the door and Jim knows he's considering, debating on whether a good friend leaves you alone when you're clearly having some form of breakdown or if a good friend knocks until you open to up make sure you don't get all dramatic and weepy and try to off yourself. Eventually Mark throws a heavy sigh at Jim and just says, "All right, man, good night." And he walks slowly down the hall and Jim is alone again.

So Jim picks up where he left off because apparently he's incapable of not just disintegrating all over himself. The tears reemerge as he lets his head fall to stare at the floor, but instead he sees the sleeves of his sweater and they touched her, they were somehow closer to her than he'll ever get to be, and he's just so fucking devastated that he wants to burn the goddamn thing. Instead he rips it off and throws it across the room, but that isn't enough, so he gets up and crosses the room to and picks it up and throws it in the trash. He thinks that he has to get out of here, that he has to leave before his mind just goes completely, so he rips open his closet and starts wildly pulling things out to pack, nevermind that he's not supposed to leave for weeks and he doesn't have anywhere to go anyway and he's hasn't even told anyone he's leaving, nevermind that he's only leaving at all because every day he stays he grows a little more desperate and a little less in control of himself. He's packing anyway. But he realizes belatedly that he doesn't have boxes yet, so now there's a pile of clothing laying on the floor and his sweater is in the trash and he's standing there in middle of the room like the madman that he is, hands in his hair and still choking on his tears and totally helpless against the hopelessness that is his life now.


	2. Chapter 2

After she destroys him, he does exactly what he thinks he's supposed to do; he throws a few dishes and breaks an end table and screams a lot of things at her until she leaves. He thinks he's supposed to be furious, but once she's gone he doesn't really have the energy to address any rage he might be feeling, and he just stands there in their silent apartment clutching a framed photograph he'd planned on throwing at the door after her. He starts to regret then, starts to reassign blame and feel partly responsible and just overall start to doubt himself, so he calls up Kenny and Darryl and anyone he can think of and they meet at Poor Richard's to properly deal with this sort of thing. But several beers in his anger has totally dissipated, and all he feels is loss and sadness and a desperation to undo this.

So he makes a few excuses, says he needs some sleep, and they all look at him doubtfully and mildly argue but mostly acquiesce and just keep on drinking because hey, they're already there, why the hell not? So he just drives himself home, or plans to, but then he's at a checkout counter and he's apparently bought a 12-pack, so he takes that home and sits in their silent and empty apartment and gets through half of it much faster than he thinks is probably a good idea. He drinks enough to actually get a bit weepy, and then he surprises himself with the force of it, the pain of it, and then he's calling her cell phone and saying words like _please_ and _why_ and _come home_ to her voicemail and he has no idea how many messages he's left. Finally she answers but she just says things like _no_ and _I'm sorry_ and _you're drunk_ and he doesn't know when she learned to be so _cold_, so unloving, his Pammy, and how she could just leave him here and how the hell is he supposed to be alone?

He looks at the mess he's made, looks at how much of their life he has broken just this evening, and he supposes that yes, this must be his fault, after all. He must be a fucking monster to make his Pammy act this way, to be so cold, to undo their past and their future and everything he'd just been assuming about his life. He must be terrible.

So he turns off his cell phone and his sits in their apartment and he drinks more and hates himself more than he ever knew was possible.


	3. Chapter 3

After he destroys her, she drives home (alone) to her (empty) apartment and makes (herself) dinner and tries to pretend that she's not really that bothered and it didn't mean anything anyway. She sits (by herself) on her couch and watches (by herself) some reruns and gnaws on her bottom lip, considering.

She considers all the reasons he might've declined coffee and all the reasons he may've seemed standoffish and she considers what exactly "kind of seeing someone" means before deciding that it doesn't really matter anyway. She considers instead that perhaps things are just a little weird because it's been a while since they've seen each other and clearly things had been a bit awkward before he had (suddenly) left but they were always such good friends and surely these things have a way of working themselves out. She considers that maybe he's just a little hurt that she never called him all that time, though she wanted to and tried to and was just too pathetic to, she considers that maybe he just doesn't know where they stand since she could not have been more vague and confusing if she had actually tried, she considers that maybe she was actually cruel and cold and selfish and she considers that maybe he hates her. Maybe he should.

She goes to bed.

She gets up the next morning and showers and dresses and prepares herself for the day ahead. She carefully and calmly applies her make up but when her hand slips and her eyeliner smears, the thought _I ruin everything_ flits across her mind and she surprises herself by bursting into tears. She tries to reign it in for a moment but once she realizes that her make up is ruined she gives up and just cries while shaking her head and thinking about what a mess she is for no real reason. Once she stops she washes her face and leaves the bathroom without bothering to reapply anything.

Instead, she leaves her (empty) apartment and drives (alone) to work and sits at her desk and waits for the day to be over. When he walks in, she half smiles and he half smiles and she thinks, _this is what regret looks like_. And she sends some faxes and answers the phone and she just had no idea how much it could hurt to be alone.


	4. Chapter 4

After he destroys her, she sits on the edge of the fountain and embarrassingly, publicly cries her eyes out.

After she calms down a bit she stares at her cell phone and considers who should she call for a ride, who she could possibly confess to that her boyfriend had just dumped her in New York because he's in love with their receptionist and he was now driving back to Scranton without her and meanwhile she needs someone to take her home. She thinks further that she doesn't actually need a ride home, she needs a ride back to Scranton, PA, the home of her ex-boyfriend who just abandoned her in another state.

This train of thought simply leads to her to consider tossing her phone in the fountain and disappearing into obscurity to avoid the absurd humiliation of it all.

Instead, she gets up from the edge of the fountain and ignores the curious eyes of various onlookers and begins wandering around the city as an excuse not to admit to herself or anyone else what had just transpired. She thinks of all her well-laid plans, remembers her future as she had imagined it only hours ago; an apartment together in the city (it would be silly and expensive to live separately in New York, right?), away from his past and his heartbreak, away from the looks and confessions, a place where nothing was left to distract him from her. A place free of long talks and long nights and days of tension and jealousy and now everything she had feared and worked so hard against had beaten her afterall. She'd tried to win against it, but he had wanted her to lose, so she had. It had been so easy for him to let her lose.

She cries again in front of a GAP, staring at the tank tops and shorts from their new summer line. She notices her reflection then, her makeup streaked and smeared where it had looked so nice before, so professional and put together, and she cries harder because he couldn't bring himself to love her. Even her best, her most manicured and presentable and confident self, he couldn't love. He couldn't even really try.

She uses the bathroom at a McDonald's to wash her face and reapply her makeup. She practices smiling a few times before finally calling a friend, hears herself say _Jim and I broke up_ like it isn't killing her inside.


End file.
